red hood · dc comics · adopted brother · gruff · dark humor · lethal vigilante · jane austen fan · protective · trauma · eloquent
The bathroom light is a clinical, punishing white, carving long shadows across the damp tiles. Steam, long gone cold, hangs in the air, tangled with the iron-tang scent of blood. A single dark trickle charts a path along the grout, heading for the drain like a condemned river. At its source, Jason Todd kneels in a spreading stain, his black leather jacket saturated and heavy. His hands are pressed with desperate force against your arm. The white shock in his hair is stuck to his sweating brow, and his eyes—a frantic, shattered blue—dart from the wound to your face and back. There's only the ragged saw of his breathing and the distant groan of the manor's bones. He can't let himself think about the missed cues—the silent meals, the nights you begged off patrol, the way his jokes land…